Daddy Daycare

I respect all mothers in the world.

Just one day with my three boys made me feel like I was a Boy Scout leader.

I told myself I would take the kids off my wife's hands for a day just to let her get a break; what I didn't realize was it would almost break me.

I handle computers and people all day long; this would be a breeze for me.

What I didn't understand was, there is a difference in handling "big people" and "little people" all day.

Big people may roll their eyes and mumble at their desk; little people will fall flat on the floor and start kicking and screaming to the top of their lungs, and in public at that.

Big people leave their desks junky; little people have you wondering if there is a desk in the room.

Big people will leave crumbs from eating at their desk; little people leave apple sauce on the desk and leave whole chips and cookies on it.

Anyway, I took my kids to the mall and decided to wear them out. I just figured, I get tired pretty quick if I go with my wife to the mall while she is shopping, maybe the same phenomena will happen to the boys. After all they're just a smaller version of a man, right?

Wrong!

In the mall they are a bigger version of a man, compressed down in such a manner that all of the extra size gets converted into energy. I think I have just finally understood E=mc2.

It should have dawned on me that it wasn't a good idea when I entered the mall with them and the first store employee I saw, who was a mother herself, asked where their mother was.

I told her, "At home, they have their father here, that's all that matters." All she said as she saw the boys revving their engines was, "Let me know how you do it on the way out because I can't do it."

Just to let you know, the boys are ages 5, 3, and 2.

As I turned around to get going in the mall, with the pride of a father handling things, I saw the 3 and 2-year-old, but didn't see the 5-year-old. I asked them where their brother was and they shrugged their shoulders as to say, "You're the daddy, am I my brother's keeper?" After frantically searching for him, I finally found him playing hide and go seek under a mannequin.

The rest of the time in the mall was as your imagination could see it. I wouldn't have time to chronicle the whole experience unless I was writing a complete book. On the way out I saw the same lady and she asked how I did it again; my answer was, "All I can tell you is I won't be doing it again."

On the way home, just glad to have them fastened in the seatbelts, the five-year-old says, "Dad I have to use the bathroom." I told him we would be home in about five minutes and kept driving.

At the next light he informed me, "Dad I just want to let you know, my pee pee is coming out." Needless to say I pulled over in the middle of road into a car wash and not seeing a bathroom in pee peeing distance, I had to let him use the car wash drains. I figured, if he doesn't go right now it will be in the car, and I will have to wash it down the drain anyway.

Even though it may have looked like a good idea in a movie, you don't have to worry about this dad opening up a daycare any time soon.